Taking a little responsibility…

How is it that I often find that people very rarely take responsibility for their own actions – especially when their actions are in some way unacceptable or unappealing?

I know so many people that excuse the way that they act just because ‘that’s just the way they are’. From people who get angry and lash out, to people who drink excessively, to people who flirt outrageously with everyone. When confronted about their behaviour the standard patois is always the same: ‘I was just built this way – I can’t help it – it’s not my fault – I can’t change – don’t try and change me’ etc etc.

Bleugh!

Of course they can help it! Even though people very often blame their ‘conditioning’ for acting in a particular way – surely everyone does actually have control of how they respond to events or situations?!

For example, there is a person I know who naturally has a short temper, and so as a result ‘cannot help’ getting into fracas, fights, altercations, fisticuffs, and melees. Righto, so he ‘can’t help it’…but lets say for argument’s sake that this person was hit in the face by a 6 month old baby. The chances are that he would react a lot differently to being hit in the face by a 6 month old baby than if he was hit in the face by a 20-year-old man. This person, who allegedly cannot help how he acts because he naturally has a short temper – in a split second – would have made a mental calculation of the context and acted accordingly.

Of course, my philosophy can’t be applied to every situation (I’m talking about people with learning difficulties / mental health problems) but my point stands.

We all have control over our own actions and we can take responsibility for the way we act and the things that we do. Genetic disposition and social conditioning can have an influence, sure, but the final say-so of how you live your life lies with yourself.

4 Responses

I totally agree… everyone has bad days, and I think everyone has behaved in a way that they later regretted at some point, but when people are consistently unbearable to be around because life isn’t going their way and they think its down to everyone else but them its almost beyond help.
They’re the type of people that need to spend a week in Ghana mining gold or in a Vietnamese military prison, then see if they still don’t appreciate their life when they get back [obviously if they don’t then they can hang] X

Well said. Of course people can control their actions unless they have some kind of mental defect. They wouldn’t get involved in a fight if it carried a mandatory 10-year prison sentence, or public castration, would they? People who don’t take responsibility for their behaviour have weak moral fibre. 😉

A question worth pondering over is “If man himself cannot control his actions, then who will successfully answer mankinds call for reproach?”. I’m pretty sleepy so maybe that makes more sense in my head than to you but, its just a funny way of saying – “we need to be careful about how we treat people who can’t control themselves, we are controlling lives not just behaviours”.

My family members are old fashioned, the comments about public humiliation and strong social justice stand true to success in their backgrounds. Today’s society calls for leniancy and with it comes immoral attitudes and behaviour. Modern views try to defeat aggression with odd rewards and little reproach. E.g. punishments are very poor, so people will just go cause damage “just for kicks”. Its a sad situation isn’t it ;(?

Society and its legalities do not always serve those who are mentally unfit and unable to handle themselves. If somebody has an intolerable temperament then you can distance yourself from them. If they are nice and snap occasionally, its much harder from my own experiences. You find yourself apologising when its not your mistake, and forgiving them when they should be apologising to themselves.

Having a temper is one thing, getting into a fight/looking for trouble is another, and being classed as mentally unfit for society is quite another!

All too often I do not see why people look for aimless fights, there is enough aimless war in the world. If they really have enough anger built up inside of them then a bit of weak moral fibre is perhaps enough of a product of their environment to send the individual over the edge.

Isn’t it simply just frustrating when somebody just won’t listen to you. When no matter how hard you try to give them the perfect advice, they turn it into an argument, and all you need is for them to listen – and all they can do is shout. All that is left is for you to act as the observer, and for others to comment about somebody you could so easily respect if they just learnt to control themselves.